I’m getting the distinct sense that neurocarceration and blankouts are connected in more terrifying ways than we think, to the point that they could represent an even worse memory hole than the one they’re using to cover up ADIRA. This is mostly cobbled together from Omnipedia updates that were made today, most prominently the revelation that blankouts are caused by anti-anxiety colloids interacting with a neurotransmitter known as norepinephrine:
The word ‘inadvertently’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, because it’s looking more and more like blankouts amount to the same neurological intervention that underpins the technology behind Reverie somnogames, and therefore neurocarceration. I think @awawawa was on the right track when they theorized that blankouts are the result of that neurological intervention being triggered while people are awake.
Another indication that colloids interacting with norepinephrine is the link between blankouts and neurocarceration was added to Samuel Domian’s article in a quote from Inès Seghir:
That last part reads to me like somnogames have the potential to inflict traumatic nightmares on people that they don’t remember when they wake up. It sounds like this was actually considered a bug during the development of Finally Awake:
At least somnogame players were given the option to wake up while being confronted with their nightmares, even if they then immediately forgot the reason for doing so and complained about it! Neurocarcerated people would be stuck in their artificially generated prison cells with no way to stop whatever their subconscious is terrorizing them with…
Except it seems that Marfa Poingdestre found a way, because she’s repeatedly escaping her neurocarceration sentence:
The fact that they keep putting her back under because she wouldn’t have any memories of how she woke up means she’s going to keep getting subjected to her “raw, unfiltered subconscious” until she’s served her full sentence!
